Gwen in Purgatory

31 July - 19 September

Namatjira

25 September - 7 November

The Bougainville Photoplay Project

9 November - 28 November

The Diary of a Madman

4 December - 6 February

The Promise asks that magnificent Russian question that has set the Belvoir St stage spinning time and again over the years: How do we live the life we yearn for?

... stunningly beautiful.
The Sun Herald

The Promise takes you on a powerful, poignant journey.
The Sunday Telegraph

Bell, Leslie and Ryan turn in finely nuanced and illuminating performances ...
The Sydney Morning Herald

... Arbuzov's emotional drama of ordinary people is ... beautifully done here in a tightly focused production ...
The Australian

Alexei Arbuzov

A new version by
Nick Dear

Based on the translation by
Ariadne Nicolaeff

Simon Stone

With
Alison Bell, Ewen Leslie and Chris Ryan

The Siege of Leningrad, 1942. In a broken-down apartment in the middle of one of the longest and most destructive battles in human history, two teenage boys fall in love with the same girl.

Passionate, terrible and wonderful, Alexei Arbuzov’s The Promise is a rediscovered masterpiece of the twentieth century. Arbuzov covers 17 years in the lives of these young lovers, filling their hopeless situation with hope and watching them grapple with the idea that the future is always a better place.

Simon Stone last appeared on the mainstage at Belvoir St in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He’s been blazing a path as a director in Melbourne with acclaimed, full-blooded productions of Wedekind’s Spring Awakening (which visited our Downstairs Theatre in 2008) and Chekhov’s Platonov. Now he directs three of Australia’s finest young actors in this special Company B unearthing of Arbuzov’s great play.